


Start Anew

by Neery



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Torture, Multi, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-16 05:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12336414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neery/pseuds/Neery
Summary: James and Miranda rescue Thomas from Bethlem. This was supposed to solve all their problems.As it turns out, things are more complicated than that.





	1. Bethlem

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [fangirlishness](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlishness/pseuds/Fangirlishness) and [teyla](http://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla). 
> 
> Detailed warnings in the end notes.

Thomas had been in Bethlem twelve months when his father told him that James and Miranda were dead. 

The words seemed to reach him from far away, as if through a haze. Murdered. The ship captured by a pirate captain named Flint. James run through in battle, Miranda slaughtered afterwards. 

If Lord Hamilton told him anything else after that, Thomas didn't hear it. He couldn't breathe. His chest was seizing, a dull pain like being ground under a two-tonne weight. His sight had become narrow and dark. He heard his own rasping breaths as if through a tunnel. 

There was a warm hand on his shoulder, a concerned voice. "Thomas? What is the matter?"

Dr Mowett. Thomas could only shake his head. 

_They're dead._ The words were all he could hear, all he could think, and yet he could not bear to say them. 

"Lord Hamilton, a word." Dr Mowett's voice was curt. He ushered Lord Hamilton out with a hand on his elbow. The door swung shut behind them. Thomas found his breath coming a little easier without his father's cold grey eyes on him. 

The heavy door muffled their words, but Dr Mowett's voice carried, sharp with anger. "...bring him news such as these without discussing it with me first, at this delicate stage of his recovery—"

Thomas bent down, elbows on his knees, and tried to remember that he wasn't going to die. The first time one of these attacks had come over him he'd been sure it would be his end, that he was having a seizure of the heart. He knew better now. 

The knowledge that this had happened before, and would likely happen again, did very little to drive away the irrational terror. It hardly even helped with his body's blind insistence that it was suffocating, in the face of all other evidence. 

The attack would pass, Thomas knew. The first thing Bethlem had taught him was that all things passed in time; that everything could be borne, no matter how one felt about it at the time. 

But James and Miranda were dead, and that wouldn't pass. They'd be dead tomorrow, and the day after, and every day after that. He'd never see Miranda's face again. James would never come, sabre in hand, to lead Thomas out of Bethlem. 

Only now when it was gone did Thomas realise how tightly he'd been clinging to that last, desperate hope: surely they would come for him. 

He let himself have a moment of blind, selfish rage. The heat of it almost cut through the grief. They'd left him here. They'd gone and left him behind. Now Thomas would rot here forever, and James and Miranda would be dead. 

Thomas gasped. The pain in his chest redoubled. 

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was a seizure of the heart after all. Surely nothing could hurt this much and be survived. He couldn't draw any breath at all. His throat burned like fire. The weight on his chest squeezed tighter. 

"Breathe, Thomas," someone said. Dr Mowett had returned. His hands were on Thomas's shoulders again, squeezing, a firm warm grip. "You'll be fine. Come on."

He was urged to his feet, stumbling and shaking. Dr Mowett held him upright. "Come with me. A bath will set you right."

From the corner of his eyes, Thomas saw Dr Mowett gesture for Alby and Finnigan. The two guards detached themselves silently from their places by the wall. Thomas tried to pick up his lagging feet. He didn't want to be dragged. And yet it was so hard to walk. He couldn't _breathe_. His body wanted to curl in on itself, his knees kept trying to fold beneath him. 

"Sorry," he choked out. He wasn't trying to be trouble. 

Dr Mowett's hand shifted to grasp him more firmly by the arm. "You're all right. Keep breathing, Thomas, we'll have you right as rain in a minute."

They brought him down to the bathing chamber, where the tub stood, filled almost to the brim, a thin rim of ice clinging to the edges. 

The hospital's cellars weren't heated. Thomas was already shivering. He took his shirt off quickly, no argument, did not even wait to be prompted; clawed at the stubborn placket of his trousers with numb, shaking fingers. Now of all times he did not want to be stripped by force. 

The first thing Bethlem had taught him was that all things passed in time. The second thing Bethlem had taught him was that things passed a lot quicker if the doctors didn't decide one was trying to be difficult. 

There were doctors in the asylum who seemed to enjoy their jobs overmuch, who'd taunt and laugh and draw things out. But Mowett considered himself a physician, a man of God and science. If Thomas cooperated, he'd have his bath, and Mowett's warm hands to help him out after, and then he'd have his peace. 

If Thomas fought, he'd have the guards holding him under the water kicking and screaming, for his own good. 

Thomas fumbled with his buttons. His hands wanted to cramp into useless claws. Alby shifted impatiently against the wall. 

Thomas's breath burned like fire in his chest. "Please," he choked out. 

"Breathe, Thomas," Dr Mowett said again, waving off the guards. His calm hands took over for Thomas's faltering ones, undoing his buttons with a quick, impersonal touch. 

Thomas dropped his trousers to the floor. The shivering had gotten worse. Mowett squeezed his arm. "It's all right." His voice was gentle. "Only get in now, and you'll feel so much better after."

The water stung his feet like needles. Thomas forced his gasping, shaking body to its knees, forced it down until the icy water lapped at his chest. 

Mowett's hand was steady on his shoulder. "Three times to the count of ten." 

Thomas clenched his hands on the rim of the tub. "Please," he said again, helpless. There were no words that would make Mowett relent. This was, after all, for Thomas's own good. Dr Mowett took copious precise notes on his progress in curing Thomas of his unnatural perversion and his rather more intractable hysterical seizures, and he considered the baths crucial to his success. 

Thomas turned his head away to hide the snarl that twisted his face. He would've tried to argue, once. He'd tried reason and cursing and physical struggle, and every time he'd been forced under the water screaming, regardless. 

A count of ten wasn't so long to keep your head under the surface when no one was holding you down. It wasn't. Only Thomas was already suffocating. He couldn't go ten seconds without a breath, not now. 

"Ready?" Mowett's hand tightened on his shoulder. 

Thomas gasped. He clawed his hands at the rim of the tub, because if he clawed Mowett, Mowett would call the guards, and then it wouldn't be a count of ten. If he fought, they wouldn't stop till he was limp and still. For his own good.

Mowett pushed. Thomas let himself be pressed down. The icy water hit his face like a slap. And suddenly it wasn't Thomas in the water anymore. Thomas was only watching, looking down at the body in the water: a stranger's thin, ragged body. A pitiable thing. Thomas was only listening, while dimly, far away, someone counted down from ten. 

Thomas watched as hands hauled the body from the water to breathe and gasp. He watched as they pushed it back under the surface, unresisting, two more times. 

And then the body was lifted from the water, and the body was Thomas again. Or at least those were Thomas's hands, drying it with a rag, dressing it in threadbare clothes. 

"There, you see? The seizure has passed, and your colour is so much better already." Dr Mowett sounded pleased. "Do you know, I think we can bleed you tonight after all. Your pulse is very strong now."

"Keeps him calm, the bleeding, it does," Alby said, from his place by the wall. "Doctor Hadleigh used to bleed him twice a week, and he was calm as a lamb then, not a lick of trouble."

"Well. Doctor Hadleigh was certainly very zealous with his treatments," Dr Mowett said. Somewhere, some far distant part of Thomas recognized that as the voice of a man who did not like to criticise a colleague in public, and was amused. But most of Thomas was only calm, calm and far away; further than he'd ever been, even when Dr Hadleigh had bled him until he was pale and quiet and Dr Mowett had yelled about it and taken over his case. 

Thomas watched from his silent, far-away place as the body was taken to its cell, and bled, and laid down flat on its back, shivering. And then Thomas was still, in the vast quiet space where James and Miranda were dead and nothing mattered at all. 

***

It was a scream that woke him, sometime in the middle of the night. Thomas sat up with a gasp and only barely suppressed a sound of pain. God, he hurt. Whatever madness had taken hold of him earlier seemed to have passed. He was fully back in his own cold, hurting body. 

Every muscle ached as if he'd been pummelled. His hands were stiff, the nails bleeding at the edges where he'd broken them scrabbling at the rim of the bath. 

It hadn't been so bad, had it? Three times the count of ten and no more, as Dr Mowett had promised. Wasn't that worth having cooperated?

 _Jesus Christ_ , Thomas thought, disgusted at himself, at the low crawling thing he'd become, this terrified creature who nodded and smiled and cooperated with his tormentors. Who stepped into the baths placid as a lamb. Who let them bleed him and blister him without a word of protest. Who disclaimed his perversions for them whenever they asked. 

How James would despise him. James would never have broken like this. He'd fight and snarl and spit in their faces. Maybe Thomas should be grateful that James would never see him like this, that James was—

The awful, bitter, disloyal thought curdled in his mind. He flinched from it. _What a fucking worm you are_ , Thomas thought, thoroughly sick of himself. James was dead, and even in his grief Thomas could only think of himself. Even when he'd learned of their deaths, Thomas's first thought had been for the rescue that wouldn't come. 

Nothing in his cell had any sharp edges. He'd tried to open his veins, a few months in. Hadn't been able to do that right, either. 

Thomas curled up on his side and dragged the thin rough blanket over himself. His eyes burned, but the tears wouldn't come. James and Miranda were dead, and he couldn't even cry. 

***

The treatments went on. 

"We've turned a corner, I believe. Only have a little more patience, my dear. We must not let up now, so close to the goal," Dr Mowett said. He saw Thomas every day now. He'd write something down in his journal, and then Thomas would be bathed, or bled, or blistered, or purged. 

Thomas was calm. Thomas wasn't any trouble. Thomas didn't fight. 

"I've rarely had so successful a case," Dr Mowett told him, and Thomas smiled and nodded and thanked him. What a terrible madness must have had him in its grip, Thomas said, with all the horror he'd learned to feign at the actions of the rash, misguided creature he was assured he'd been. 

"Dr Langdon does not believe that inversion can be cured, you know." Dr Mowett shook his head sadly. "It's those hidebound naval surgeons with their outdated notions. I'd have the lot of them drummed out of the hospital if I could. Of course you're not going to effect a cure with lashings and talk of hanging. Although to be sure sodomy has a very deleterious effect on a man's mind, and you're lucky indeed you did not overindulge in the act, or I don't know that I could have had the same success."

Thomas smiled and agreed and did not think of the time he'd asked James to fuck him twice in a single night, and then again in the morning. 

James would spit in his face if he could see him now. 

"Now if only we could make as much progress on those hysterical seizures of yours." Dr Mowett frowned down at his notes. "I fear the frequency has only increased, for all we've done. I've read the most interesting treatise by a Dr Sydenham just this week. He postulates that hysteria arises when the brain is overloaded with an excess of phlegm. I know you do not like the purges, Thomas, but I do believe we must continue to draw off the vicious humours."

Thomas smiled, and agreed with that, too.

Time passed. On Sundays, the public would visit the hospital, to stare at the madmen in their chains. If Thomas had been good, cooperative and calm, sometimes he'd be allowed to talk to visitors unobserved. Many people had heard the name of Captain Flint, he found. A notorious man, renowned for his merciless cruelty even among pirates.

Thomas found that he could cry after all, at night with his blanket over his head and his pillow in his mouth to muffle the sound. 

***

Someone was screaming again. Thomas pressed his blanket tighter over his ears and wished for a thicker cell door. The thought only belatedly struck him as perverse. What a creature of simple desires Bethlem had made of him. 

Keys scraped in the lock. The door swung open. Thomas turned to face it. He could have sworn it was the middle of the night still. But then he'd lost his sense of time before, in this dank, windowless hole. 

Someone held up an oil lamp. Thomas winced from the light, shielding his eyes. Three men came into his cell, none of them guards he'd ever seen before. 

"Quiet, now. You're coming with us," one of the men said. He was tall, blond, very young, barely out of his teens.

Thomas sat up quickly in automatic obedience. One of the men winced a half step back, raising a cudgel in his hand. All the men were armed, in fact, and not with the usual night sticks of Bethlem's guards. It begun to dawn on Thomas that these were not, in fact, Bethlem's guards at all. 

"What are we going to do if he starts screaming like that other one?" the man with the cudgel said nervously. 

"Jesus, Dobbs, put that down," the tall one said. "Captain Flint wants him alive."

The name went through Thomas like a surge of lightning. He must've made some sound. Dobbs raised his cudgel again. The tall man reached out and yanked it from his hand with a muttered curse. 

"Fuck you, Bones! He's a madman, you don't know what he's gonna do—" Dobbs protested, but subsided at a glare. 

"You want to explain to Flint why we got his man killed, after all the trouble he went to? If he screams, we deal with it then."

"I won't scream." Thomas raised his hands. "Is that who you're bringing me to? Captain Flint?"

"Come along now. We need to get moving," was all Bones said.

Thomas stood, then had to reach for the wall to steady himself when his vision went dark. Bones grabbed Thomas by the elbow when he stumbled, not roughly. Thomas let himself be towed along. 

_Captain Flint_. He'd never heard the name in his life until his father had told him of James's and Miranda's deaths. Thomas had assumed it was bad luck, nothing more: their ship captured by pirates, the sort of thing that happened at sea. But then why would this Captain Flint be coming for _him_? Had it been personal somehow? Some score to settle with James?

Even if this was about something James had done, how would Flint know to come here? Neither James nor Miranda would've spoken his name to an enemy, not even under torture. 

"Captain Flint—what does he want with me?" he asked Bones, who hissed at him, irritated. 

"Shh—you want to alert the guards?"

Maybe he _should_ do that, Thomas thought. Should he really let himself get quietly dragged in front of the man who'd murdered Miranda and James?

But Thomas stayed silent. This Captain Flint, whoever he was, at least might have some answers. Maybe Thomas ought to be plotting right now, to try and get his hands on a weapon. James, in his position, would certainly have known some way to get at least a knife away from his captors. 

But Thomas hadn't been much of a fighter even before a year of hunger and deprivation and bleeding. He couldn't remember the last meal he'd had that hadn't been followed by a purge. The thought of him going up against even a single pirate in a fight, never mind this infamous Flint, was frankly absurd. 

No. Thomas would try to get his answers, one last glimpse of what had happened to Miranda and James, and then he'd spit in the man's face for what he'd done. If Flint was going to kill him, hopefully it'd be something cleaner than the hatchet job scarring the inside of Thomas's left wrist. 

There were fewer guards than usual, and those at their posts had clearly been bribed. Doors were opened for them and gates unlocked. Thomas eyed the darkly glistening stains on his kidnappers' clothes in the flickering light of the oil lamp and thought he could imagine what had happened to the guards who hadn't wanted to take a bribe. 

They brought him out into the grey light of early morning. For a moment Thomas's feet refused to move as he looked up at the purple dome of the sky above them. London's air was dank and choked with fumes, but it was the first time Thomas had felt the wind on his face in more than a year. 

Bones turned to him, a frown on his face. He startled, faltering, at his first glimpse of Thomas's body in the light. 

"Jesus, what do they do to patients in there?"

Thomas laughed, a humourless snort. "What don't they do?"

He started moving again, unresisting, when Bones took him by the arm. There was something almost solicitous about the gesture. Maybe he was worried Thomas would faint on him, which wasn't so far-fetched a concern. They'd already done more walking than Thomas had done at one time in over a year. His legs felt shaky. 

***

A carriage took them to the Thames, where they put him in a boat and started rowing downriver. It was a long trip, but the men steadfastly ignored his attempts to find out anything beyond what he'd already been told: he'd be taken to Captain Flint. 

"He said to tell you he'll answer your questions when you get there." Bones pulled steadily at the oars, not even breathing hard. "He said you'd be obstinate, too," he added, when Thomas opened his mouth. "Don't bother, all right? None of us want trouble with the captain."

Thomas raised his hands, acquiescing. This time of day, the Thames bristled with activity, ships being loaded and unloaded at the docks. No one paid any attention to their little boat. 

Thomas let himself slump against the side of the boat. He closed his eyes and tilted his head up, feeling the weak sunlight on his face.

The next time Thomas opened his eyes, the boat had pulled up beside a large ship. The men looked exhausted, their shirts dark with sweat. Thomas's neck ached from sleeping so long in the awkward position. They had to help him climb up the side of the ship. 

"Where's Flint?" Bones asked one of the crewmen, who pointed wordlessly. Thomas looked up. The captain was halfway up the rigging, turned away from them, gesturing to a section of the complicated geometry of ropes and sails and snarling something at his men in a low growl of a voice. The wind carried his words away. 

Even seen from behind, the captain cut an imposing figure: a tall man of sturdy build, his long dark coat moving with the wind, a sabre at his hip. 

"Thomas!" 

Thomas looked down. The world fell away. 

"Miranda?" He reached for the apparition suddenly standing in front of him. His hands trembled. 

She was pale, dark-eyed, thinner than he'd ever seen her, in the sort of simple gown a Puritan woman might wear; yet unmistakably Miranda, unmistakably alive. 

She threw herself into his arms. He caught her, felt her warm and real under his hands. 

Alive. 

Miranda kissed him, her body crushed to his, her lips bruising his mouth. Thomas trembled. He was holding her too tightly, he knew. 

"They told me you were dead," he said, his voice choked. 

"Oh, my dear." Miranda cupped his head with one hand, pulling him down against her. He buried his face against her neck.

Thomas took a deep breath. He had to ask. It took two attempts to get the words out. "Is James—"

Hope was a terrible thing, a hungry gaping chasm in his soul, and yet he didn't know how he'd bear to have it taken away. 

"He's here."

Thomas made a sound, a choked sob that hurt deep in his chest. He turned his head away, pressed his hands to his face. Tears stung his eyes. 

"How—" he choked out, then swallowed hard. No, that wasn't what was most important right now. He looked at Miranda, let himself take her in, thin and plainly dressed but no sign of blood or bruises. 

"Captain Flint—he's treated you well?"

Miranda shook her head, lowered her voice so he had to strain to hear. "Thomas, there is no Captain Flint." She hesitated, her mouth tightening."Well. No. I don't suppose that's true anymore, these days. But you'll see in a minute. Look."

She turned, and even as she reached out to point the man in the rigging climbed to the deck, dropping gracefully down from the ropes. 

Thomas froze. "James."

James embraced him, wordless, strong arms almost painfully tight around Thomas's shoulders. Thomas breathed in his familiar scent, salt and smoke and the sea. 

James was alive. James was—James was Captain Flint. The man whose name Thomas had cursed every night for the last two months, who'd haunted his nightmares—

The ship swayed beneath him. Everything had gone quiet and distant. James cupped his face. His calloused hand was rough and warm on Thomas's skin, the only thing that felt real anymore. Thomas pressed his cheek into the touch. 

"James. The cabin, maybe?" Miranda suggested delicately. Reality returned with a rush. Thomas abruptly became aware that they were standing in the middle of the deck, that half the men were staring at them in open curiosity. 

They hastily stepped apart. Thomas tried to imagine what the men must've seen. Nervous sweat prickled at the back of his neck. Two long-lost friends might be excused a sentimental greeting. Surely nothing they'd done had yet strained the bounds of propriety.

James turned to Bones, who was still standing beside them, trying not to look like he was staring. He grasped the young man by his forearms, the smile still on his face. "That was good work, Billy. Very good work."

Bones looked as taken aback as if he'd received a backhand across the face instead of a compliment. James laughed and sent him away with a friendly clap on the shoulder. 

"Praises his men much, does he?" Thomas muttered to Miranda. 

She smirked. "He's a bit of a taskmaster."

James turned back to his men. "Mr. DeGroot! Get us under way!" 

Thomas watched as James bellowed orders while the ship set sail, in his element in a way he'd never been in London's drawing rooms. 

James looked good. The costume of a pirate captain suited him: the beard, the silver rings on his hands, the heavy canvas coat, the studded belt. A small golden ring glinted in his left ear. Thomas wanted to put his mouth there, to catch it with his teeth. 

James's hair had grown another handspan since the last time Thomas had seen him. He kept it severely pulled back from his face, but below the ribbon it fell in soft, auburn curls. Thomas self-consciously pushed a strand of his own filthy, matted hair off his face. They'd shaved his head twice, for lice, but that had been months ago. It had grown out ragged, to an awkward length, too short to do anything with but long enough to fall in his eyes. 

Miranda was still smiling, her hand tight on Thomas's arm. They were alive. Both of them. Alive. Thomas's heart felt full to bursting. 

James turned to face him again. "Are you hungry, my dear?" 

His voice had softened from Captain Flint's bellow of command, back to James McGraw's precise diction, tinged with affection. It was a fascinating transformation to watch. 

_Food._

__"Yes, please," Thomas said, blushing for the tone of desperation in his voice. Food had been sparse in Bethlem for those without a loving family to bring them meals, and what there was of it usually vile. And that was if they didn't make him vomit it up, after.

James reached for him again as soon as the cabin door closed behind the three of them. He pulled his hand back before he could touch. "No. You need to know what happened."

Thomas was about to reach for him anyway—curiosity was all well and good, and he certainly had a million questions, but he hadn't had James's hands on him in more than a year. There was a knock on the door before he could do more than lift his hand. They flinched apart.

A man came in carrying a heavily laden tray. "Compliments of the cook. Said he already had something prepared for your gentleman."

Thomas stared, wide-eyed, at the spread that was piled on the desk: crusty bread so fresh he could smell it, ham and cheeses and preserves.

James smiled, squeezed his arm. "Sit. Eat. We'll talk after."

Thomas ate until his stomach hurt, forgetting all manners, all propriety. He emerged from it as if from a daze to find Miranda watching him with fondness in her eyes. He smiled at her. His beautiful, beloved wife; alive. He reached for her hand and kissed it. Turned to smile at James, to share his joy at this moment, at finally getting to see them again. It felt like a drug. 

"It's been such a long time," he said, meaning only how good it was that it was over.

James flinched as if he'd been slapped. The corners of his eyes tightened, pained. 

"You have to know we were trying our best, Thomas," Miranda said—Miranda _pleaded_ , his proud Miranda, who never begged for anything—

"Of course you did," Thomas said, incredulous. How could they think he didn't know? The idea that—oh, he couldn't even imagine what it was they supposed he might think—that they'd been enjoying a Caribbean vacation, knowing him locked up in London? The very thought was preposterous. If they hadn't come for him sooner, it was because they could not. "Of course you did your best."

"Your father made it very clear he wouldn't let us take anything from—from _his_ house—we fled with what we could carry away in the night, a few changes of clothes, a few pieces of my jewellery. Peter put us on the ship to Nassau. There wasn't enough money for the passage back, never mind bribes, or men to break you out of that place—" 

Miranda's voice cracked. 

Thomas squeezed her hand. He could only imagine how desperate they must have felt. 

He turned to James, wonderful resourceful James, who, in fourteen months, had pulled off a feat so far-fetched James could not even imagine how it might have been done. 

"So you turned pirate captain."

James closed his eyes for a moment, drawing a breath like a man bracing for a blow. Thomas reached for James's hand. It clenched into a fist on the table. Thomas pulled back without touching him. For a moment it felt as if he were looking at a stranger, a dangerous stranger, some violent and unfathomable emotion roiling just beneath the surface. And then the moment passed, and it was only James again, his dear James, looking exhausted to the bone. 

James's eyes flicked to Thomas's hand, which had curled against his chest. His mouth quirked up into a smile so strange and pained Thomas almost flinched from it. "Yes. You should know what I've done."

Thomas listened, incredulous, as James told him everything: how he'd convinced the pirate quartermaster to back him, how he'd won the ship. The desperate, months-long hunt, the brutal fights, going out again and again, taking one fat prize after the other—

"You have to understand," James said, his eyes pleading. "It's a full month to sail from Nassau to London, if the wind doesn't fail, and the risks of coming into harbour here, even disguised as merchantmen—the men wouldn't have followed me in something like this, not at first. I had to make them trust that I knew how to put money in their pockets."

"But they trust you now?"

"Well," James said, his mouth twisting wryly. "I don't think I'd like to see what'd happen if we had to weather more than a lean month or two. Even now—we passed a prize, sailing here, a British brig, limping along with a broken yard on her mainmast. From Nevis, from their course, which means rum or tobacco. Valuable cargo." 

James was fiddling with one of his rings, restless fingers spinning it round and round. "It was too good an opportunity to pass up. They'd have mutinied." James eyes cut to Miranda. His face tightened. "They surrendered without a shot fired. They mostly do, these days. But there's always a chance—"

There was always a chance of a fight, and anything might happen in battle. Thomas knew that very well. The knowledge had weighed on him, even during the happiest of their days in London. He'd known that eventually James would have to sail with the Navy again. They couldn't keep him safe with them forever. 

And then everything had gone to hell anyway, and even London hadn't been safe. 

Still, to have to take the chance, with Miranda on board; Thomas could only imagine how James must have felt. 

"So your men finally agreed to this venture? How'd you manage to convince them there's any profit in rescuing a madman who's not even worth a ransom?"

"As far as they know, you're the husband of a dear friend who'll pay very handsomely for your rescue." James shrugged. "It'll take every cent of prize money we've saved over the past few months to make it worth their while. We'll be poor as church mice for a bit."

"Will we have to—to take any ships, on the way back?" Thomas tried to keep his voice steady. The thought of having to watch James go into battle now, when he'd only just gotten him back—

"No," James said immediately. "Hold's full to bursting with tobacco, and she broke her fore topmast in a squall a week ago. Couldn't catch a prize if we wanted to. It's straight back to Nassau for us—you'll be safe, Thomas."

James voice was gentle, reassuring. Thomas tried to hide his wince. He wondered whether it was already obvious to James what Bethlem had done to his nerves. Wondered, suddenly, whether it had been obvious before, whether that had been part of why James had opposed his plans for Nassau so stringently at first. Had James somehow seen even then how quickly Thomas would crumple under pressure, when it came down to it? 

Thomas tried to keep his head up, tried to keep his voice steady. "The British will be glad to be safe for a month, I suppose. You must've been quite the scourge on their shipping—even in Bethlem they'd heard of Captain Flint."

James wouldn't look at him anymore. He was staring straight ahead, his face hard, and again Thomas had that sense of some dangerous inner turmoil only barely kept in check. 

"I went for English ships when I could," James said. "They took you from us—they took our _life_ from us—"

"So you made them pay." Stripped of everything he'd worked for, placed in an impossible position, facing dangers Thomas could only begin to imagine, James had made them pay. 

Thomas had cowered and begged. Thomas had cooperated.

James had started a war.

Thomas turned his knife in his hand, let it clink gently against his plate. His governess would have smacked his knuckles for fiddling with the cutlery. 

"If you're done eating, you'll want a wash, Thomas, my dear," Miranda said gently into the lingering silence.

Thomas self-consciously touched his filthy hair again, his matted beard. 

"Of course." James pushed hastily to his feet. "I'll have some water brought in—you'll have to forgive us, there's no tub on the ship."

Thomas laughed, a harsh sound that startled even him. Both James and Miranda turned to look at him.

"That won't be a problem," was all he said. He didn't think he could bring himself to step into a tub right now no matter how nicely heated it was. Just the thought made his breath come short. Thomas dug his nails into the meat of his palm. The very last thing he needed was to have an attack of hysteria in front of James.

Footsteps behind him. A hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. Thomas flinched violently before he could stop himself. 

James immediately withdrew his hand. "I'll have them bring the water," he said again. "You'll want some time with your wife."

James closed the door behind him when he left the cabin. One of his men brought a bucket full of steaming hot water, enough to fill the big metal ewer several times over. Miranda followed Thomas's hesitant gaze to the cabin door. "I'll lock that for you, shall I?"

Thomas shoulders eased at the sound of the bar sliding home. A door to lock from the inside, something he'd taken for granted all his life, suddenly seemed a wondrous luxury to him. There'd been no visible way to lock him _in_ , either. Not that it mattered, Thomas reminded himself. This was James's ship. 

"James won't mind?" he asked tentatively. He had no very clear idea of naval etiquette, and less of the running of a pirate ship, but it seemed to him that locking the captain's door against him could not possibly be the done thing. 

Not that it was James, specifically, he was trying to lock out. He just—he only needed a little while, a few moments to compose himself. This had all been—it had been a lot to take in, that was all. 

"I suspect right now James would let you do anything short of burning down his ship, and not mind," Miranda said drily. The corners of her mouth tightened. "He was—we were desperate to have you back. It's been such a long time."

Fourteen months. And it remained to be seen what James and Miranda were going to get back for all their efforts. Thomas wasn't the same man who'd been escorted into Bethlem all those months ago. Once James and Miranda got over their first relief, once they started looking a little more closely, the difference was going to tell. 

Thomas looked from the locked door to the washstand and back, fingers tightening on the hem of his shirt. There was nothing for it. He wasn't so far gone he'd ask his own wife to leave the room while he undressed. 

Like a plunge into cold water, it was probably best done quickly. He pulled the shirt off in a single jerky motion, but then lingered, folding it up, although the rag it was hardly warranted such care. Let Miranda look her fill. His shoulders tightened into knots at her harsh, indrawn breath. 

"Oh, my dear," Miranda said softly. 

"It's not so bad," Thomas said, which God knew it wasn't. Very few inmates were lucky enough to escape Bethlem with as few marks as he had. A few scars on his back from the lash; but he'd been whipped for punishment less than half a dozen times. Thomas had learned so very quickly to be cooperative and agreeable, after all. 

Dr Langdon had believed in the therapeutic value of the cat. He'd liked to make Thomas recite his sins, followed by six lashes by way of deterrent, and then an hour of vigorous exercise, to turn the mind to a more virtuous path. But Dr Langdon hadn't been in charge of his case for much longer than a month, and anyway his man had been careful, precise; had hardly ever broken the skin at all. Thomas had hardly any scars to show for his handiwork. 

A few small shiny patches on his chest, from a visiting physician who'd liked to blister his patients, not with the usual caustic powder but with a metal rod heated in boiling water. That man had been in it mostly to amuse himself, that much had been clear from the fit of his trousers as much as from the hungry looks he'd given Thomas's body as he writhed and sweated under the treatment. But Thomas knew he'd been lucky there, too: the man had never actually touched him with anything but his blistering rod, and he'd moved back to Dorset after a week. 

Beyond that, only the scars the shackles had left on his ankles and wrists. He'd learned early on not to pull his restraints, but it had been hard to remember sometimes, in the grip of his increasingly frequent attacks of hysteria. 

Thomas reached for the soap, which was very fine, smooth and delicately scented. Apparently pirate life was not without its luxuries. 

"Will you help me with my hair?" 

He bent over the wash basin while Miranda very carefully poured warm water over the back of his head. It was nothing at all like being ducked into an icy tub, and yet his body didn't seem to want to realise that, with water running down his face. Thomas's hands kept curling into fists. He pulled his head up, gasping. "Enough."

Miranda worked the soap into a lather in his hair, her fingers massaging his scalp. Thomas blushed for how filthy he was. "I can—"

"Nonsense. I can reach much more easily than you could," Miranda said briskly. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder as if she was worried he'd disappear from under her hands if she let go. 

Thomas picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "All right." 

They emptied half the bucket washing his hair, and used up every drop of the remaining water sponging down the rest of him. By the end of it Thomas felt truly clean for the first time in over a year. He rubbed his fingers together, marvelling at the spotless pink skin. Even the rim of filth under his nails had been scrubbed away. Miranda rubbed his back dry. He leaned back into her touch, his eyes slipping closed. When was the last time he'd been touched so gently?

"This is not how I expected today to go," he said softly. In just a few hours, his world had been turned upside down. They'd come for him. 

Thomas had lost faith. They never had. They'd spent all these months working towards this, risked everything they had. They'd got him out. 

Thomas put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. His eyes burned, dry and gritty. His breath hitched. Miranda wrapped her arms around him from behind. She pressed her cheek to his freshly-washed hair. He clung to her, desperately. 

He didn't know how long they stayed like this. Finally Miranda pulled back with one last lingering caress to his shoulders. "Would you like me to cut your hair for you?"

"Please."

He'd worn his hair short all his life. This, at least, was one thing that could be returned to the way it had been.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the updated warnings in the end notes.

James leaned against the quarterdeck railing, face tilted into the icy spray, and tried to focus on the issue of his broken fore topmast. 

The spar they'd jury-rigged had held up well enough, their last few days sailing to London, but he didn't trust it in a strong wind, and it wouldn't hold a topgallant. It was going to be a disaster if it did come to a fight, which, on this course, was unlikely but not impossible, despite what he'd told Thomas—

Thomas—

They could try and rig the shrouds for some additional support—

Thomas's hands hadn't stopped shaking. 

He'd attacked his dinner like a starving wolf: a gaunt, feral thing, sallow skin stretched tight over bones. His shirt hung off him like a scarecrow's rags. There'd been thick bands of scar tissue around his wrists, covered by the cuffs he'd kept anxiously tugging down, right until he forgot himself at the sight of the food. 

If they ran another line aft to take pressure off the backstay—

James could still feel the sharp, fragile point of Thomas's shoulder under his hand, the way he'd flinched when James had touched him. 

James was going to turn around and burn down every last fucking ship in the Port of London. He'd shoot their docks to splinters, raze the city to the ground. 

Except he couldn't. 

Thomas wouldn't like it. 

Thomas hadn't liked any of it. James had known that. He'd known before he'd so much as told Thomas a single word of what he'd done. With every piece of cargo he'd stolen, every life he'd taken, every cruelty he'd committed, he'd known that Thomas would look at what he'd become and recoil. 

He hadn't seen another way. 

Thomas would have. He always found a way. He knew how to talk to men so they'd listen, how to think his way out of intractable problems. James had nothing but his skill in a fight and a feeling for a good story. Talents enough to create a pirate captain out of whole cloth, but not enough to find a better option. 

Thomas had become more quiet with every word of James's confession. He'd kept his eyes on his plate, shaking hands fidgeting with the cutlery. James had never seen him fidget before. 

And then James had touched him, and he'd flinched. 

It was all right. James had known it would come to this. Getting Thomas out of that place had been worth the price. 

Thomas would be fine. James would take them to Nassau. Thomas and Miranda could make a home in Miranda's safe, quiet house. Thomas would recover. He'd always been resilient. James would leave them in peace. He'd send money. Thomas wouldn't want the ill-gotten gains of piracy, but Miranda was a pragmatist. She'd take the money. 

They'd need the support. James's and Miranda's first attempt at homesteading had been truly pitiful. A carpenter's son and a highborn lady, they'd neither of them had the first idea of where to begin. Even with the neighbours' advice, they would've starved to death their first winter if James hadn't been bringing in money with the Walrus by then.

But Thomas and Miranda would learn. It wouldn't be the life they deserved, the life they would've had if James had listened to Miranda and called things off before they went too far. But he didn't doubt that between the two of them they'd find a way to be happy. 

James would go back to the hunt. He'd make England pay—

The thought felt hollow, all the passion gone out of it. Who cared about fucking England when he had Thomas and Miranda to think about? The thought of continuing the fight, knowing Thomas would hear every battle recounted in merciless detail by the island's gossip machine…

Just one more good hunt, then. He'd set up Thomas and Miranda with enough money to see them through, and then perhaps it was time for Captain Flint to disappear back into the sea from where he'd come. Perhaps James ought to disappear with him.

***

Thomas had put on some small amount of weight since they'd left London, smoothing out the worst of the hollows in his face, but he still ate like he was afraid there'd not be another meal for days. Sometimes, when he forgot himself, he'd curl his arm around his plate protectively.

If Miranda ever laid eyes on Bethlem again, she'd burn it to the fucking ground. 

Thomas would remember his manners if spoken to. He'd sit up straight and force his mind on the subject at hand. But it was obvious what a strain it was on him, so James and she waited, silent, while Thomas ate his way through salt pork and ship's biscuit as if they were a feast.

As usual, James pounced the moment Thomas finally pushed his plate away, as if Thomas might stand up and leave if he didn't immediately involve him in a conversation. 

"I noticed you've finished the book. How did you find it?"

"Terrible." Thomas frowned at the slim leather-bound volume that lay abandoned in his hammock. "Moralizing nonsense based on a specious and shallow interpretation of the Lord's word."

"Perhaps it's not our place to interpret God's word," James said. 

Miranda could've struck him. Not for the argument, which she knew for a fact James did not believe—he was transparently playing devil's advocate, winding Thomas up to watch him go. For talking about books at all, nothing _but_ fucking books and on a good day maybe the weather, when there was so much left unsaid in the air between them.

Thomas, of course, was only too happy to take the bait. He was as unwilling as James to discuss any of the topics that lay like tripwires between them now. But he'd hold forth on ethics and morality with the same passion he'd always had. 

James was drinking it in, elbows braced on the table, half-empty wine glass forgotten in his hand. Miranda felt a sudden wave of affection that almost drowned out the lingering irritation. James was the only other person in the world who saw what she saw when she looked at Thomas. 

She moved her chair a little closer so she could put her head on James's shoulder, watching Thomas through half-slitted eyes. James's hand absently slid into her hair, nails scratching gently at her scalp, the way he knew she liked. Most of his attention was on Thomas still. Miranda felt the moment he remembered himself, when he stiffened and pulled away. 

Miranda felt her mouth twist up in a bitter smile. No, of course he couldn't just let them have this. These goddamn dinners were the only indulgence James seemed willing to allow himself anymore. He'd draw out the conversation, he'd look at Thomas like a starving man at a feast, and then he'd leave to go back out on deck, where he spent almost all of his time. 

With every day, James seemed to be drifting farther and farther away from them. 

Miranda could imagine all too easily what he thought they were doing in the privacy of his cabin. It almost made it worse that they'd barely done more than hold each other since Thomas had come aboard. Neither of them had said it aloud, but Miranda knew they both felt James's absence whenever they touched. 

Well, _fuck_ James. 

Thomas paused, startled, when Miranda slid into his lap. "Don't let me stop you," she said, kissing the soft skin behind his ear, where a gentle touch never failed to make him shudder. She had some vague idea that James and he had moved on to arguing about Hobbes, a well-treaded old disagreement they liked to revisit every so often. She'd stopped listening a while ago. 

Thomas seemed to have lost the thread of his logic. Miranda pushed his collar aside and set her teeth against the muscle low at the base of his neck. Thomas shifted beneath her, making a pleased sound. She sucked a bruise onto the soft skin. His collar would cover it, but she'd know it was there. 

_James_ would know it was there. 

She lifted her head. James was watching them. The look on his face made the vindictive satisfaction freeze into a cold ball in the pit of her stomach. She'd meant to make him jealous, to show him what he was denying himself. Perhaps she'd even meant to hurt him a little, the way he'd hurt her by pulling away. 

James looked gutted. His hands lay loose and open by his sides, defenceless.

"I'll be on deck," he said. His voice sounded almost normal, if you paid no notice to the way his shoulders had bowed in defeat.

Miranda bit her lip hard enough to hurt. She wasn't the one who'd done this. _Damn him_ for making her feel guilty. Nothing stopped James from joining them except his own cursed stubbornness.

Miranda glanced at Thomas, who'd ducked his face down so he wouldn't have to look at James; who'd not been able to look James in the eye since he'd come on board. He flinched a little when the cabin door slammed shut. 

She ran her fingers through his blond hair, clumsily cut by her inexpert hands, shot through with far more grey than should've been there after a single year. The only one of her two loves she could still touch. And so touch him she would, and fuck what it did to James. Fuck James, fuck him for doing this to them—

"I miss him," Thomas said, low. Miranda bit her lip against the sob that wanted to well up and ducked her head until she could press her mouth to his. 

***

James hadn't meant to slam the cabin door. He regretted it immediately, and then regretted it more when Hal gave him a speculative look. 

"Lovebirds chasing you from your own cabin again? She sure must be glad to have him back." Hal drove a jovial elbow into his side. He didn't mean anything by it. Friendly teasing, nothing more. It was all James could do not to lay him out with a punch. 

Hal dropped his arm and squinted at him dubiously. "It's not the woman that's got you all broken up, is it? I know you liked her. Why'd you put all this effort into getting him back, then, if you wanted her for yourself?" 

James didn't know what was showing on his face, but Hal backed away, hands raised. "All right, all right. None of my business."

***

Miranda found him on the quarterdeck that night, an hour after sundown. She leaned against the railing by his side, staring out across the dark waters. 

James studied her from the corner of his eyes. He missed her, in a way it shouldn't be possible to miss someone who slept in his cabin every night. For a year she'd been his partner in everything, the only person who knew why he was doing what he did.

The starboard lantern picked out a fine sheen of sweat on Miranda's skin, a flush on her face.

 _Don't_ , James told himself. 

"Did you have a good evening?" The words burst out of him. 

He'd known she was angry at him. He could feel her glower halfway across the ship sometimes, the weight of her eyes on him, the unspoken command: _fix this_. 

She didn't look angry now. 

Miranda reached for his hand, two fingers brushing the skin on the inside of his wrist. "I did have a good time. But perhaps not the way you're thinking. You remember the trouble we had, the first little while in Nassau?"

"Ah." James stroked a hand over his beard. His face felt hot. 

He'd found himself unable to perform for her, those first three months, choked by a crushing guilt so much worse than any pangs of conscience he'd felt the first time he'd been with her. Adultery was bad enough; fucking Thomas's wife when he'd left Thomas behind to rot in an English cell had felt like an unthinkable betrayal.

The problem hadn't improved until he'd gained command of the Walrus, when he'd finally felt like he was making real progress towards getting Thomas back.

He looked at Miranda again, the loose-limbed way she leaned against the railing. "You don't look, um." The utter inappropriateness of the question struck him belatedly.

Miranda ducked her head. She looked up at him, bashful in a way he'd never seen her before. "He was very keen to make it up to me." She hesitated. "Do you think I was selfish to let him—"

"No. I expect it made him feel better."

He hadn't even done that much for her, at the time. Looking back, he thought he should have. What possible point had there been to all three of them being miserable? He'd known better than to think Thomas would begrudge it. They should have taken what comfort they could in each other. Instead he'd withdrawn, left Miranda to deal with her fear and loneliness on her own.

Well, she had Thomas now. 

Miranda turned her hand over, tangling their fingers together. "Come inside with me." 

James gently pulled his hand away. "I need to check on the—the course," he said, waving vaguely towards Dooley, who manned the rudder. He clenched his tingling hand into a fist, feeling Miranda's eyes on him like an itch between his shoulder blades as he walked away.

***

Thomas liked the Walrus, a fact that gave James a fierce, proprietary pleasure. He liked to stand in the prow for hours, face tilted into the wind and the sun on his face. Too much sun, perhaps, for his pale English skin. But the first time James sent him back to the cabin, Thomas had gone too quickly, shoulders hunched, as if James's gentle "You'll burn, my lord," had been some sort of sharp rebuke. 

James couldn't bring himself to say anything, the day after that. It was Miranda who finally came on deck to collect Thomas and found him wind-chapped and sunburned, his skin bright red and starting to flake across the bridge of his nose. She gave James an incredulous glance sharp enough to make him wince. 

After that, he had the men rig up a piece of sailcloth to shade the barrels of water they had stowed at the prow. It was a good idea to keep the water cool, regardless, and never mind that it made for a nice shady spot to sit. Hal gave him a speaking glance about it anyway. James very much feared that Hal had started to draw his own conclusions about Thomas and James. 

Not that there was anything much to discover, these days. They had dinner together; they made polite conversation. 

Thomas was interested in the business of sailing in a way Miranda had never been. He was curious as a cat, paging through James's charts, climbing all over the ship, getting into everything. One time James found him down in the hold, examining one of the bilge pumps. Another time he spotted Thomas halfway up the rigging, Billy watching him anxiously, one hand ready to grab him if he faltered. 

Thomas would spend hours standing by DeGroot, who was only too happy to lecture on the finer points of rigging and navigation. He talked to the men, asking all sorts of questions about the ship, about the work, about life on the account. 

But he never asked James. James would've been perfectly goddamn happy to explain whatever he wanted to know, he thought, watching DeGroot point out manoeuvres as the Walrus tacked into the wind. 

It was a bitter thought. James tried to push it away. He knew perfectly well why Thomas avoided his company, although of course Thomas was too well-bred to ever say anything, especially when he knew the things James had done had been done for his sake. James imagined that must make it worse. 

"I wish you'd talk to him," Miranda said, perching on his chart table while Thomas was out on deck. 

"I talk to him every day." James slapped the log book down and stood to pull on his coat, his back to her. His shoulders ached. 

"You know what I meant." 

James didn't turn around. He could feel her anger like a palpable weight in the room. 

"You've not said a single thing of consequence to him in days. Perhaps if you actually spoke to him—what do you have to lose?"

James shook his head. He left the cabin without answering.

Miranda had forgiven him for doing what needed doing, for not finding a better way. She didn't see why Thomas shouldn't do the same. But Miranda was a pragmatist, and in her own way, she'd wanted England to pay just as much as James had. 

Thomas, if asked, would grant him his pardon, the way he'd been willing to pardon all the other monsters of Nassau. But Thomas had always abhorred violence. James could still remember his horrified expression the day he'd learned of the pirates who'd killed the governor's wife and child: his pale, tired face, and the way he'd swallowed his disgust and moved on with the plan of the pardons for the sake of their joint mission. 

James could do that, if he wanted: make Thomas swallow his disgust, make Thomas grant him forgiveness for the unforgivable things he'd done. 

He had no interest in putting Thomas in that position. 

The Walrus kept him busy. They adjusted the rigging around the makeshift fore topmast, adjusted it again, and managed to attach a topgallant to the jury rig after all. DeGroot frowned and grumbled about it, but it meant half a knot extra in fair weather.

The men groused about the work, but good-naturedly, with the hold full of precious cargo and a large reward promised for Thomas's safe delivery to Nassau. Occasionally James would catch them watching Thomas like a particularly valuable piece of cargo, visibly tallying up the money in their heads. 

Apart from that they seemed unsure how to treat him, torn between the nobleman they'd been told he was and the ragged madman he'd looked when he'd first come on board. Thomas wasn't making it any easier on them. James had had clothes made for him in Nassau, so he could've looked the part of the lord if he'd wanted. Instead he'd taken to going about in his shirt sleeves, with his feet bare. He'd climb all over the ship, conversing with everyone from the bosun to the kitchen boy as easily as if they were guests in one of his salons. 

But then, half of London had thought Thomas a possibly-dangerous eccentric, and he'd not let it stop him. Why should he care what a bunch of pirates thought? 

James didn't say anything about it. He even managed not to say anything about the beard, for days and days, although even trimmed back it was a sad, ragged thing, bristly and shot through with grey. It added ten years to Thomas's face.

He finally broke down during one of their dinners. "You're keeping the beard, my lord?" 

"Oh." Thomas self-consciously rubbed two fingers over the scraggly hairs. "I confess I don't quite know what to do about it. I—this is going to make me sound every inch the spoiled lordling. My man had some experience as a barber. I've never really… shaved myself." He blushed, a slow creep of red spreading over his cheeks. "The thought of teaching myself on the deck of a moving ship is a little daunting."

The wave of fondness James felt was startling in its intensity, piercing him through before he could brace for it. Thomas and his boundless curiosity, Thomas the visionary, Thomas the brilliant orator, those things had haunted his dreams, and he'd learned to guard himself against them. But somehow he'd forgotten about Thomas the spoiled lord, who couldn't tie his own goddamn cravat properly without help. He'd forgotten how utterly, inexplicably charming he'd always found those glimpses of bewildered helplessness in a man with such a brilliant mind.

"I can do it for you," he said without much thought. He'd been shaving himself on the deck of a rolling ship for almost three decades, and in weather much rougher than this gentle northeasterly wind. He'd done it for one of his captains, too, as a midshipman in the Navy: Roberts, a hard-bitten son of a bitch, who'd lost four fingers of his right hand to a malfunctioning cannon. 

"Or—Melvin, the surgeon's mate, he used to be a barber," he added hurriedly, belatedly realising what it would mean: his hands on Thomas's face. His hands holding a blade to Thomas's throat. 

"If you wouldn't mind," Thomas said, too quickly, and James could hardly take it back then. 

He always kept his razor honed, but he took the time to sharpen it anyway, stropping the edge with care. One of the men brought up a bowl of hot water from the kitchen, smiling indulgently. It was a waste, washing with fresh water, but the men had taken to spoiling Thomas. At this point, James didn't even think it was all about the money he'd bring them. It didn't surprise him that the crew had taken a liking to Thomas. How could they not?

"I'm going to get some fresh air," Miranda said as Thomas sat down in the chair. She gave James a sharp glance on her way out. _Talk to him._

 __As if there were anything left to be said.

Thomas kept his shirt on, draping a sheet over his shoulders to keep it dry. James wasn't surprised. Thomas hadn't bared an inch of skin in his presence since he'd come on board. He changed behind the curtain in the cabin, kept his shirt buttoned to the neck and his sleeves pulled down. 

Thomas stared straight ahead as James spread the lather on his skin, silent and stiff. James tried to keep his touch dispassionate, tried to remember what he'd done when he'd used to shave Roberts. That impersonal distance proved impossible to conjure up. Thomas's skin was soft and warm under his hands as James tilted his head to the side. 

He started with Thomas's cheeks, shaved carefully around his mouth, his upper lip. Thomas was cooperative, let James move him around as he liked, stayed where James put him, but there was a strained tension under the surface. James could feel it start to ease as he worked; by the time he'd finished with the tricky stretch of skin around the jaw, Thomas had gone pliant in his hands.

James made Thomas tilt his head back and bare his throat. He dragged the blade down the side of his neck, where the blood vessels beat right beneath the thin skin. Thomas had his eyes half closed, his breath slow and even. 

He tipped Thomas's head back down when he was done and stroked two fingers over his cheek, felt how soft and smooth the skin was. 

"You'll do, my lord," he said, and abruptly the tension was back, Thomas going stiff and distant all at once. James hurriedly dropped his hand. He handed Thomas a cloth to wipe the rest of the lather off. 

"I'll be on deck," James said awkwardly. His fingertips burned with the memory of Thomas's skin.

***

James woke to the sound of the curtain sliding back. Thomas was standing over his cot. He looked like a ghost in his smallclothes and a billowing white shirt, pale skin washed out by the moonlight, a wild look in his eyes.

James's eyes felt gritty and sore, his mind slow with sleep. "Thomas? What –?"

"Will you fuck me?" 

Thomas set a small vial down on the side of the cot and pressed his mouth to James's. It was a harsh, graceless kiss, teeth clashing. He slipped his hand through the flap of James's smallclothes and took hold of him, his grip almost painfully tight on James's soft, unprepared cock.

James gripped his wrist. "Thomas—"

"Please." Thomas's voice was low and cracked.

James turned his head to find Miranda watching them from her hammock. Her face was shadowed, unreadable. He gave her a helpless look. _What do I do?_

Miranda twitched one shoulder, a minute shrug. 

James kept looking at her, pleading. She frowned, but finally tilted her head. _If this is what he wants..._

James slowly let go of Thomas's wrist. Thomas's hand had gentled on him. He coaxed James to hardness with long slow strokes. James's body was still adrift with exhaustion and confusion and the rush of being woken in the middle of the night. There wasn't much arousing in the situation. But it was Thomas's hand on him, Thomas's intent gaze pinning him to the mattress, so it did not take his cock very long to respond regardless.

Thomas clambered onto the cot with him. He got to his hands and knees, forcing James to shift aside. He'd pushed his smallclothes down just past his arse, but the long tails of his shirt trailed down to his thighs, not baring any more skin than absolutely necessary.

James pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, feeling painfully unsure of even this much. It did not seem to him that Thomas was inviting any excessive intimacy. Thomas didn't protest the kiss, but he did make a noise when James reached for the vial of oil. "I prepared."

James trailed his fingers up Thomas's thigh, found him slippery with oil but clenched tight, twitching a little when James touched him.

James didn't have to touch Thomas's cock to know he wasn't hard. He knew how Thomas's body moved when he was aroused, the way he'd arch into a touch, the pliant way he'd spread his thighs. James wanted to kiss him, to suck his cock, to try and coax some pleasure from his body. But he could read Thomas's signals well enough to know his efforts wouldn't be welcome.

Even as he had the thought, Thomas reached back to push his hand away. "I'm ready. Come on."

He pushed himself back against James, too quickly, hardly even giving James the time to rub some oil over himself. His fingers tangled with James's, guiding him in, and then he was forcing himself back on James's cock.

He was hot and slick inside, distractingly good. But even as James drew a shuddering breath at the feeling he couldn't help but notice the way the muscles of Thomas's back clenched with discomfort, tightening under his hands.

"Thomas—"

"Come on," Thomas said, sharp, impatient, shoving himself back until James was all the way inside.

Every motion of their bodies set the cot swinging. It kept James from finding a rhythm. Thomas pushed back against him, too hard, his breath hitching.

James almost overbalanced when the cot abruptly halted. He caught himself with one hand on the mattress. When he looked up, Miranda was standing there, bracing the wooden frame. Her eyes caught his, calm and steady. James blew out a breath, shuddering with the feeling of something dislocated sliding back into place. His partner back by his side.

"James. Harder," Thomas bit out. 

He caught Miranda's eyes. _What do I do?_

He got nothing but a helpless shrug in return _._ But somehow things still felt better, easier, knowing Miranda was there to share his confusion.

He snapped his hips hard, driving himself into Thomas the way Thomas demanded. Thomas flinched, a pained hiss of breath escaping him. Miranda's eyes were hard and angry. _Do something. Fix this._

He caught Thomas by the hips when he would've shoved himself back for another brutal thrust, held him panting and tense in his arms. James kissed his tight shoulders in a silent plea. __  
  
Thomas trembled in his arms, breathing hard but finally still. James ran his hands down his sides in long, sweeping strokes. Thomas didn't protest. He let James stroke his thighs, under the long tails of his shirt. The soft hair on Thomas's legs prickled against James's palm. 

James closed his eyes. Thomas was so tight around him. He shivered a little when James stroked the tender skin of his inner thighs. 

Thomas didn't protest the tentative kisses on the back of his shoulders, through the thick fabric of his shirt. Didn't even protest when James hesitantly wrapped his arms around him. James pressed his chest to Thomas's back and buried his face against the back of Thomas's neck. 

Slowly, bit by reluctant bit, the tension ebbed from Thomas's body. The tight clench of him eased. When James let him go he slid down to rest his chest on the cot, arms splaying out to the sides.

Thomas was the one who'd taught him how to do this the right way, a mutual exchange of pleasure instead of a fumbling clash of bodies in the dark. James didn't think he could forget the way of it if he lived a hundred years: the right sort of rhythm, the precise angle Thomas liked. He pulled out just enough to smooth more oil over the both of them, took hold of Thomas by the hips to tilt him up a little more, and thrust back inside, slowly and carefully. 

"Oh," Thomas said, a low and startled sound, and as James continued to thrust, a deeper tension seemed to drain out of him. Suddenly it was Thomas again in his arms, and not that terrifying driven stranger: the familiar, lovely arch of his back, the little sounds he made when James gave it to him just right.

Thomas never got all the way hard for it, but even so he seemed to like James's oil-dripping slippery hand cradling his cock. His body was a pliant weight in James's hands. Miranda's eyes had softened with approval, which was a startlingly sharp pleasure all on its own. She shifted until James could tuck his head against her shoulder, taking part of his weight. 

James came with Thomas making soft pleased sounds and Miranda leaning down for a kiss.

He pulled out slowly, carefully, but even so Thomas gave a little twitch of discomfort. James spent a few distracted moments cleaning up, wiping himself down with a cloth, getting the oil off his hands. By the time he looked up, Miranda had slipped back into her hammock. Thomas lay sprawled out on his stomach, his eyes closed, feigning sleep determinedly if not at all convincingly. His breaths were long and even, but his body near vibrated with tension.

James stroked Thomas's soft blond hair, a little helplessly. What was he to do about this? Even with the best of intentions, there was no room for two fully-grown men to sleep comfortably on James's narrow cot. And yet if Thomas wanted to stay here with him, no force in the world could compel James to move him.

James stretched out as well as he could in the scant space Thomas's body left for him, at the very edge of the cot, which still left them pressed together shoulders to hips. He tentatively wrapped an arm around Thomas's still form and gathered him against his chest. After a moment Thomas shifted to fit himself more closely against James.


	3. Chapter 3

James woke when Thomas slipped out from beneath him, the first rays of early dawn just creeping into the cabin. The furtive hunch of Thomas's shoulders made it clear enough that he didn't want to talk about what had happened. James watched him quietly from under lowered lids. 

He sat up on his cot when the cabin door closed behind Thomas. Miranda padded over on bare feet to join him, leaning her shoulder against his. James picked up her hand to lace their fingers together.

"What the fuck was that, Miranda?" James looked down at their joined hands; he didn't think he could meet her eyes.

"I don't know his mind the way I used to," Miranda said, which meant she had no more idea of what Thomas had been about than James did. Fucking hell.

"When was the last time you'd touched him?" Miranda gently rubbed her thumb over his hand. 

James's shoulders tightened. "He doesn't want me touching him." Not until whatever the fuck that had been last night. The feeling of Thomas's bony shoulder under his hand, his sharp flinch at James's touch, was burned into his memory.

"Doesn't he? He slept in your bed, my dear." Miranda looked at him, her shrewd eyes stripping him down to the bone. "Perhaps, after all this, you might consider talking to him."

***

When James left the cabin, Thomas was sitting in his usual spot by the bow, trying to coax the ship's cat into his lap with a treat.

Randall frowned down at him, coiling a long piece of rope around his arm. "Ey! She's supposed to work her passage catching mice, not eat our rations!"

James almost rolled his eyes. Randall had turned into a right tyrant since being voted quartermaster. Like he didn't slip treats to that cat every other meal, himself.

Thomas's eyes went to Randall, who towered over him where he sat on his small crate, and caught on the piece of rope dangling from Randall's hand. He flinched violently, hunching in on himself. 

James was halfway across the deck before he could think about it, anger boiling up. What did Randall think he was doing, anyway, talking to a high-born passenger like he was a member of the crew who could be scolded for falling down on his duty? 

But Thomas was already getting up, and Randall's sheepish "But a few treats never hurt anything, right?" fell on deaf ears. Thomas crossed the deck towards the cabin, his head down. He pulled the door shut behind himself hard enough to rattle the frame.

James hesitated, looking at the door. He followed.

***

Thomas stood with his hands braced against the open stern windows, trying to slow his breathing. The familiar pain squeezed his chest. God, what a wreck he was. None of James's men would lift a hand to him, he knew, and not only because James would certainly kill any man who tried. And yet, looking up at an angry man with a rope in his hand, he'd cowered.

He didn't look up when the door opened, even as the heavy fall of booted feet dashed his plaintive hope that it might only be Miranda come to check on him. Surely James would turn away, the way he had every time so far, and leave Thomas with what little dignity he had left. 

But James didn't leave. Thomas heard the sound of him crossing the cabin, and then there was James's hand, tentative and gentle on his arm. Thomas didn't move. 

Slowly, hesitantly, James took one more step, until his chest brushed Thomas's back. And then James's arms came around him. Thomas's hands closed around James's forearms, clutching convulsively, nails digging in. 

Strangely, it felt like his breath came easier with James's arms tight around his chest. Thomas let out a long sigh. He'd been cold, but he was warming up fast, cradled in James's arms. Thomas felt his mouth pull up into a grimace. 

"You should know what kind of viper you're holding to your bosom." His voice cracked. It was becoming a struggle to breathe again.

"Thomas—?"

James sounded cautious, wary, but Thomas couldn't let himself be interrupted. He should've done this days ago. He didn't know if he could find the nerve to start again, if he stopped now.

"I let them—in Bethlem, I, I let them—" His breath rasped in his throat, burning like fire. He couldn't get enough air. The cabin blurred in front of his eyes. 

James's arms slid from around him. James was leaving, and Thomas hadn't even managed to say his piece. "I did what they—told me, everything they, they told me—" He put his hand down hard on the sideboard, dizzy. Was it the ship rolling, or only his balance gone?

A splash of water. Something cold touched his hands.

"Hold that to your face," James said. Thomas looked down with an effort. There was a wet cloth in his hands. Black spots swam through his vision.

"Thomas. Hold it to your face."

James's voice was a bark of command. Thomas's hands moved before he could think about it. The cloth was cool against his face, a little rough. It felt good against his heated skin, a bright shock of sensation where the rest of him had gone numb.

Another splashing sound. The cloth was pulled from his reluctant fingers, and then there was a cup in his hand instead. 

"Drink. Little sips."

He sipped. Rum, strong, unwatered. It burned in his mouth. Thomas coughed.

"Good. Again."

James was behind him. The cool cloth touched the back of his neck, the rough weave scrubbing over his skin.

"Thomas. Drink."

Another sip of rum, burning all the way down to his stomach. James's hand on his arm. "Sit before you fall down."

A chair beneath him. A desk in front. He dropped his forehead to the cool wood and breathed. It came easier now. The attack was finally passing, now that the damage was done.

James's hand, rubbing slow and warm between his shoulder blades. James was still here. 

Thomas smiled grimly down at the desk. Well. No wonder James hadn't been able to make sense of his garbled confession. Thinking back on it, he'd not actually managed to say a single meaningful thing.

"I sold you out," he said, forcing himself to be clear this time. "In Bethlem. I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them you'd... you'd forced me." James's hand had gone still on his back, but he didn't pull away. Thomas forged on, suddenly desperate, the words fighting to come out. "I told them you were a degenerate sodomite. I told them Miranda was a cold and frigid woman who denied me my marital rights, and it made me vulnerable to, to your advances."

James's hand resumed its long slow trek down his back. "No shame in lying to the enemy under torture."

"Torture." Thomas scoffed. He sat up, dislodging James's hand. He yanked his shirt off over his head, let James see his few scattered, pitiful scars, not even a score of them all told. "Half the men on your crew have scars worse than this."

James had gone very still behind him. For the space of a few heartbeats, neither of them moved. Then James reached out and slowly traced a finger down the worst of the marks, a long diagonal slash down his back.

"Do you think I don't know what goes on in Bethlem? I used to tell myself... they don't put men in there without family connections, not for sodomy. I told myself that if they ever did catch me, the worst that might happen is they'd string me up. I figured I'd put a bullet in my own head before I'd let them put me in there."

Thomas flinched. James's hand tightened on his shoulder, gripping him hard enough to hurt. "But I knew you'd be all right. You've more courage than I do. I knew you'd hold out till we could get to you."

"Courage," Thomas repeated, incredulous. "I hadn't been in there three weeks before I started having these attacks of hysteria. I can't sleep through the night, I can't stand to be in a closed room half the time, all it takes is someone raising their voice to me, or coming up behind me too quickly—"

"Hysteria," James repeated curiously. He rubbed his thumb over the side of Thomas's neck, pressing into the tight knots of tension. "That what they call it in there?"

Thomas twisted his head around to look at him. It struck him belatedly that James hadn't seemed surprised by his attack. That he'd known what to do. "You've seen this before."

"Like you said, half the men in my crew have scars worse than yours. You think I haven't seen a man get the sweats before? Plenty of people get a touch of melancholy, after they've been through something harrowing. Night terrors. These sorts of attacks. It's nothing special, my dear."

James's arm came around his naked shoulders, cradling him against James's chest again. Thomas closed his eyes and let it happen.

They both jumped when the door opened, but it was only Miranda. Her eyes lit up with a painful hope when she saw them together. Thomas wordlessly held out his arms for her, shifting so she could sit on the desk in front of him. Miranda kicked off her shoes and tucked her toes under his thighs on the chair. Thomas buried his head in her lap with a sigh.

"You two all right?" Miranda ran her hand through his hair, ruffling it gently. 

"Mm," Thomas said quietly, although God knew if they really were. It occurred to him that he'd confessed things to James he hadn't even told Miranda yet. But right now he couldn't face the idea of talking about any of it again. He turned his face into the soft fabric of Miranda's skirts and closed his eyes for a long moment. 

When he looked back up, James and Miranda were having a conversation over his head with their eyes. Thomas looked from one of them to the other. This was new. It had been him and Miranda conversing like that, once. But of course they would've grown closer in the year they'd spent without him. It made him glad. He'd hated to see the distance between them, those last few days.

James's touch on him was changing, the long comforting strokes becoming exploratory. He rubbed a curious finger over Thomas's nipple, teasing it into a stiff peak. It sent a faint spark of pleasure through his body, although it was muted, the way pleasure mostly was, these days. But it felt good, regardless, pulling him back into his body, anchoring him.

James's hand slid lower on his stomach.

"I can't," Thomas said, apologetically. Less so after one of his attacks than any other time, probably.

"I know," James said.

Thomas winced a little. He'd hoped he'd managed to somewhat conceal the problem, the other night. Miranda was giving him a faintly guilty look.

Thomas raised one eyebrow at her. _You told him?_

She gave him a slight tilt of her head, not all that apologetic. Thomas sighed. 

"Did you enjoy yourself last night?" James asked tightly.

Thomas looked down. He'd used James very ill, he knew. Some part of him had known that even as he was doing it. He'd been so scared. Every time his body had refused to respond, to Miranda's touch, to his own hands, the fear had grown that perhaps Mowett's cure had succeeded after all. 

And then James had stroked his face, razor in hand, the first indication he'd had since he'd come aboard that James was still willing to touch him at all, and he'd had to know. He'd been so worried James was going to push him away, that he'd have to live with not knowing. He'd panicked, and panicked more when it hadn't been good at first.

But James had known what to do, just as he'd known what to do when he'd found Thomas in the grip of his hysteria. Thomas smiled a little, remembering it: James's lips on the back of his neck, James's calloused hands stroking his thighs, James's cock inside him.

Bethlem hadn't cured him of loving James any more than it had cured him of loving his wife. It hadn't cured him of being a sodomite. The certainty of it burned inside him, a wild defiant thing. James had given that to him.

"I enjoyed it very much," he told James, whose hands had tightened around his sides.

James knelt down beside him, leaning his face against Thomas's side. Thomas stroked his hair, carding his fingers through the long auburn strands. 

"You should get some rest," James said. 

"Mm." Thomas felt empty, all strength washed out of him by the attack. He pulled himself to his feet with an effort. His bones appeared to be made of lead. He looked at his empty hammock, and then deliberately turned and climbed into James's cot instead, sprawling face down with a sigh. 

For a moment, everything was silent. He could feel their eyes on the back of his neck. 

"You'll join him, of course," Miranda said. 

"He needs his rest," James said, and then, "There's no space." 

Miranda didn't say anything, but from the quality of the silence behind him, Thomas suspected they were having another of those wordless conversations. Thomas kept his eyes closed. A few moments later Thomas heard the sound of footsteps crossing towards the cot. Thomas smiled into his pillow. 

He heard the thump of James's boots hitting the floor. The cot started swinging gently as James climbed inside. He carefully fitted himself to Thomas's back, a little tentative at first and then more certain when Thomas didn't protest, until they were pressed together along their entire length, James's thigh between his and James's arm slung warm and heavy over his side. 

"Your wife is a tyrant, my lord." The smile in James's voice belied his peevish tone. 

"My wife is a very sensible woman whose advice, I am frequently reminded, we would all do well to follow more often." 

"Get some rest," Miranda said. He could _hear_ her rolling her eyes, but he could hear her smiling, too. After a moment, the creaking of her hammock told him she was taking her own advice. 

The cot swung gently beneath him with the motion of the ship. James was idly stroking Thomas's stomach. He could hear James and Miranda breathing in the quiet, dimly lit space of the cabin. 

Thomas slept.

***

When James woke up, Thomas had somehow moved them around so he was plastered to James's back. They both faced Miranda now, who was awake—awake, and watching Thomas slowly, methodically undo the buttons on James's shirt. That was what had woken him, James realised, the faint tickle of Thomas's hand brushing his chest.

James twisted around, trying to catch a glimpse of Thomas's face. "What are you—?"

Thomas's arm tightened around him, holding him in place. "I should think that would be obvious." His hand slid over James's chest, into the open collar of his shirt. His palm rasped over James's nipple. "Would you like me to stop?" There was a smile in his voice. 

Outside, the ship's bell tolled. Not even three hours since he'd found Thomas braced against the stern window, pale and sweating, terrified. James could still see him the way he'd been last night, a wild-eyed spectre kneeling on his cot. But Thomas sounded… all right. Not quite as light as he'd probably intended, a faint strain underlying the deliberate levity in his words, but whatever mad impulse had driven him to James's bed last night, this was something else. 

James dropped his head back onto the pillow. "Carry on," he said, his voice rough. His body was waking to Thomas's touch with a desperate urgency. Already, his breath came shamefully quickly. 

Thomas tugged the tails of his shirt from his breeches. He rucked it up by slow inches, trailing his fingers over James's stomach. James's muscles twitched under his touch. 

"I've missed you," Thomas said, very low. He licked the pad of his finger and rubbed it over James's nipple, a maddening tease. 

James's back arched, sweat breaking out between his shoulder blades. His cock was bent awkwardly in his trousers, straining. Miranda watched them, her eyes dark. 

"Your husband is a tease, madam," James said. The corners of her mouth twitched. For a moment he could almost imagine they were back in London, when things had been easy between them. 

"Take your shirt off." Thomas put his hand back on James's hip, holding him down; a light touch, but as inescapable as an iron shackle. It left James to struggle awkwardly with his sleeves, unable to sit up. His efforts set the cot swinging beneath them. James shot a hard look at Miranda, who was clearly enjoying _this_ , too. She smirked back at him, unrepentant, her eyes on the way the muscles in his chest contracted as he moved. 

Thomas kissed the back of his neck. He lingered a little over the new scar on the back of his shoulder, a glancing blow from a cutlass that'd come close to taking James's head off. Thomas ran the tips of his fingers very lightly over the placket of James's breeches. 

James clenched his hand around the edge of the cot, gritting his teeth against the sounds that wanted to emerge.

"Stop teasing, Thomas," Miranda said. She'd shoved up her skirts, one hand between her thighs. Her eyes flitted between James's face and Thomas's hand on him.

"My wife would like something to look at, I think." Thomas's breath brushed the shell of James's ear. He plucked at the buttons of James's trousers. "Shall we give her a show?"

James felt heat rise to his face. He cursed his pale complexion. Thomas knew exactly what he was doing to him, of course. James could hear the smirk in his voice. 

Thomas pushed James's trousers down until they rested just beneath his balls, the V of the open placket framing his cock, which was flushed red, damp at the tip; embarrassingly, obviously eager. Somehow, in over a year of sharing his bed with Miranda, James hadn't learned to stop blushing at the frank, hungry way she'd look at him. 

But Thomas's hand had gone still on his hip. James felt him shifting restlessly, moving in a way that set off faint warning bells in his mind. And then Thomas made a sound that raised all the hairs on the back of his neck.

James twisted around. Thomas had one hand around his own cock, squeezing, a brutally tight grip on flesh that wasn't even half hard. He groaned again, discomfort and frustration in equal measure. 

James gently caught his hand and pulled it away from Thomas's poor abused cock. "Don't. It'll happen or it won't. No point trying to force it."

Thomas looked down at their hands, something bleak in his eyes. "You said you'd seen this before," he said, gesturing vaguely, encompassing not the current situation but everything that had changed in him: the strange spells he had, his melancholic moods. "You said you've seen it in other men. Some of them must've had this problem."

"Sure." Not that it was something any man would admit to without a bottle or two of rum in him.

"Does it come back?"

"Came back for me," James said. 

Thomas went still, startled. "Really. The fearsome Captain Flint."

"Wasn't Captain Flint then." Thomas's hand was sliding up his thigh. " _Captain Flint_ never—fuck—Captain Flint's a story, Thomas. _He's_ never had that fucking problem."

Thomas curled a hand around his cock, squeezing firmly. James's hips bucked helplessly into the touch. 

"Captain Flint's cock is as fearsome as he is, then?" Thomas's mouth twitched with amusement. 

"Mm. Captain Flint can f—ahh—fuck a hundred women in a night." James's voice cracked as Thomas started stroking him, slow tight strokes from root to tip. 

"Is that what they say? Tell me more." Thomas was smiling. He twisted his hand over the head of James's cock. James arched up with a helpless curse, sweating. Miranda leaned up on one arm, her eyes dark and intent as she watched Thomas take him apart. 

"God," James said, trying to remember—there were all sorts of bloody stupid rumours, but his mind was blank, nothing but Thomas's hand on him and Miranda's hungry eyes. 

"Tell me," Thomas said. 

"Fuck." Thomas's hand slowed. James squirmed, begging wordlessly, but Thomas was relentless. "Fuck you, Thomas, this isn't—Captain Flint, ah, once satisfied a whore so well, she paid _him_ fifty pieces. Captain Flint visits a witch who performs un— _fuck_ —unspeakable sexual acts—" he couldn't talk anymore. 

"Unspeakable acts, are they? Keep talking." Thomas was stroking his thumb against the sensitive spot  
right beneath the head of James's cock. James shook. He was so close. If Thomas only gripped him a little bit tighter, gave him a little bit more than that single teasing finger—

"Thomas, if you make him come before I've even had a chance to touch him, I swear to God—" Miranda said, and then Thomas's hand was _gone_. 

"No." James's hips arched up into nothing. "Thomas. Please—"

"You wouldn't want to disappoint the lady, of course." Thomas was enjoying himself, the fucker. James had forgotten what a little shit Thomas could be.

"Where do you want him, my dear?" Thomas asked. Jesus. He'd forgotten this, too, how it felt to be traded off between them. 

"Put him on the desk," Miranda said, and then laughed, catching a look from Thomas: "Oh, you and your fantasies of being taken by strapping sailors in hammocks. Let me assure you that reality doesn't measure up. There's advantages to fucking on a surface that doesn't move."

James smiled, even as he half-curled up around the throbbing ache in his cock. Thomas steered him towards the desk. God, how he'd missed this, the two of them together. 

Thomas pushed him down to lie on his back on top of the desk. There wasn't space enough to stretch out, his legs hung awkwardly off the end, but Miranda was right about fucking in hammocks. They'd tried it. It was a pain in the ass. 

"Hold his hands for me," Miranda said. 

Thomas gripped him by the wrists, pinning his hands down beside his head. James groaned. The two of them were going to be the death of him. 

Miranda climbed onto the desk, straddling him, her skirts spreading over his thighs in a rustling waterfall of fabric. James shuddered as she sank down on him, hot and wet and tight. 

"We could have been doing this all along, you know," Miranda said, eyes flashing. She was angry at him still. 

"I'm sorry," James said. Her expression softened, but only a little. James's back arched when she leaned down to suck and bite a stinging bruise into his chest, her teeth digging in just short of real pain. He groaned, his cock twitching inside her. 

"Miranda!" Thomas said, shocked, when she pulled back. He ran his fingers over the swelling purplish bruise she'd left behind. It was fucking sore; it would last for days, her mark on him. Thomas's touch chased sparks through the tender skin. 

"Oh, you like it." Thomas sounded delighted. James suppressed a groan. Thomas Hamilton, learning something new. And then Thomas pressed down harder, and the sound broke out of him after all. 

"It's been a year, Thomas. I've had time to discover a few things." Miranda's voice was tight as she rocked on him. And suddenly his anger was back, cutting through the haze of pleasure: a year, an entire year that England had stolen from them, a year they could've spent with Thomas—

Mirada bit him again. He gasped, pulled back into his own body by force. 

"You'll stay here with us," Miranda snapped. 

James cupped his free hand around her hip in silent apology. Thomas still held his other arm. He watched them with bright interest. James thrust up, matching Miranda's rhythm as she rode him, pleasure washing through him in waves. Thomas leaned down and kissed his arm, sucking a bruise onto his biceps to match the ones on his chest, teeth closing down—

The pleasure crested suddenly, sharply. Miranda wasn't quite there yet, he knew, but he crashed into it as inexorably as a ship riding down a swell. Thomas leaned over him, sliding a hand between them, his thumb stroking her slickly even as James swore and thrust up hard, riding out the last blinding waves of pleasure. He felt Miranda clench around him. The feeling teetered over into a bright sparking sensation almost too intense to bear. Her nails left marks on his chest as she came with a familiar breathy laugh, and finally went still, slumped upon him. 

James drifted, floating. He smiled up in hazy satisfaction as Thomas bent over him to kiss her, his wet sticky hand braced flat on James's abdomen. Thomas was leaning on the desk with one hip, his breeches still carelessly open. James turned his head to find him, if not fully hard, at least showing more interest than he had any other time so far. He didn't think Thomas was aware of it himself, fully occupied with Miranda as he still was; he made a startled sound when James turned his head to press a kiss to the head of his cock.

James flicked his tongue out to taste, sliding his lips over the tender skin. Thomas looked down at him, a startled, uncertain pleasure on his face. James twisted his head around a little farther, letting Thomas slide inside his mouth. 

Thomas reached down to trace his lips, smiling at him with such affection it made James's chest clench. He sucked Thomas slowly, gently, felt him swell a little more inside his mouth. Thomas gave a few tentative thrusts, his hand cupping James's cheek. Miranda leaned across to kiss him again. 

Still, after a few minutes it became obvious that the thing wasn't quite going anywhere. James wasn't surprised when Thomas pulled out. Thomas cupped his cock against his stomach, already softening again. 

"Not quite happening yet, is it." James pushed up on one elbow to press a kiss to Thomas's knuckles. "It'll come back."

"I rather think so, now." Thomas stroked James's hair back from his face. "That was lovely. Thank you."

"Mm." James's eyes slid shut in pleasure. His chest still felt a little sore. He looked down at himself and winced in dismay. He looked like he'd been mauled by an animal. "Fuck's sake, Miranda. You realise I won't be able to take my shirt off for days."

"Oh, I don't know," Thomas said thoughtfully. He smirked. "They say Captain Flint once fucked a lord's wife with the lord sleeping not ten feet away—"

"They might not even care, either way." James felt reckless, suddenly, a giddy joy coursing through his veins. "They say Charles Vane fucks his quartermaster, you know."

"Does he really?" Thomas's eyes were bright and interested.

James shrugged. "Fuck knows. Rackham seems pretty attached to his woman. But there's rumours aplenty, and no one fucks with Vane."

"It's not as easy as that, and you know it." Miranda's voice was terribly gentle. "You'll note no one talks about whether Rackham fucks Charles Vane. Even in Nassau, there's things a man cannot be seen to do."

She touched the bruise on his arm, the one Thomas had left. James sighed tiredly. "I know."

He sat up, swinging his legs off the table to sit, catching Miranda with one arm. She'd made a startled sound when he'd first moved, but settled easily enough to sit on his lap. 

Thomas buttoned his breeches and sank down in the chair. "What happens next? When we reach Nassau?" 

It was the first time he'd spoken of the future since he'd come aboard. 

James gently pushed Miranda off his lap, nudging her to sit beside him. Thomas listened quietly as James laid out the plan for him. He described Miranda's safe, peaceful house, the garden, the flowers that might just be starting to bloom when they arrived in Nassau. 

"I'll visit you, of course. Whenever I can," James added, amending on the fly when he noticed the blank stillness of Thomas's face. He'd been a fool to think they'd let him disappear from their lives, of course. But there could be no peaceful ending for Captain Flint on a farm in Nassau. There were too many men on the island who wouldn't trust his retirement. If he let them see him weakened, no power base, no men, they'd certainly take the chance to remove him from the equation. He'd have to continue being Captain Flint for them. The thought tasted bitter. But Thomas and Miranda would be taken care of.

"There'll be money enough for you to live very comfortable lives, with what the Walrus brings in."

"Yes, thank you, that's quite enough." Thomas's tone was as cutting as a blade. James finally realized that the thing hiding under the blank mask of Thomas's face wasn't worry, wasn't disappointment. It was anger. 

Thomas whirled to face Miranda, his voice a hard snap. "I trust, from the self-evident stupidity of this plan, that he had not discussed it with you, and therefore I need not shout at you both? Sticking us on a farm while you continue on the account, for the love of God."

"Thomas—" James started. Surely Thomas had to see that this was for the best. 

"No." 

"The money—"

"The money we'll need if we're going to follow your ill-conceived notion of homesteading on Nassau? Jesus Christ, James." He turned to Miranda. "I trust you've not discovered some previously unknown love for the quiet country life while I was gone, my dear?"

Miranda only lifted her hands, indicating that she was going to stay well clear of this argument. James glared at her. If Thomas couldn't be expected to be sensible, at least _she_ —

Miranda put a gentle hand on his thigh. "James, my dear. I'd follow you to worse places than a homestead in Nassau, but we're none of us farmers." 

"There, you see?" Thomas turned back to James with a look of satisfaction in his eyes. 

"Thomas—"

"No. Of course you won't return to piracy, James. Dear God, the very notion. Leaving aside any moral scruples I might have about the practice—"

"Thomas—"

"You hate it!" Thomas voice cut across his like the crack of a whip. "I've never in my life seen a man more miserable than you were when you recounted Captain Flint's deeds to me."

Ah. There they were again. Hadn't he already made his confession to Thomas once? Should once not be enough for anyone? 

"I enjoyed it," he said, the words cutting his mouth like shards of glass. He remembered the thrill of battle, the vicious satisfaction of his enemies' blood on his hands, and felt sick with it. 

Could he not have stayed a little longer with Thomas and Miranda in his arms, and kept his mouth shut? All the joy had washed away and left him drained and empty, like the beach after a storm, jagged wreckage littered everywhere. 

Thomas looked at him, steady and unflinching. "I'm sure you enjoyed it, in the heat of battle. I'm told it's a rush. And you have a temper, my dear." 

James looked away from his knowing eyes. But Thomas wasn't turning aside; Thomas gave him a faint shadow of a smile. "I expect you enjoy it less when you relive it in bed at night. I've heard your nightmares." 

Thomas leaned forward to pick up his hand. James could not bring himself to pull away. "What would you have us do, then, if you dislike my plan so much?"

"Protection," Thomas said promptly, as if he'd been waiting for the question. "There's plenty of landowners producing valuable product on Nassau. Tobacco. Rum. But they can't sell it, because the waters around Nassau are full of pirates." He smiled. "We offer them an escort. A small convoy, three or four merchant vessels, all lightly armed themselves, under the protection of Captain James Flint and the Walrus—who'd fuck with that? We might have some trouble finding trading partners at first, Nassau's reputation being what it is, but some of the wealthier families in Boston aren't so opposed to a little risk. We'll find partners in London once they see that Nassau can fill their coffers."

Thomas, James realized, must've been working on a plan of his own for a while. This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment idea. "You've been talking to my crew," he said slowly. He was beginning to suspect that not all of the conversations Thomas had been having with everyone aboard had been about the art of sailing a ship. "You think you can sell them on this?"

"You said it yourself. They'll follow you as long as you fill their pockets. Most of them aren't monsters. They're men looking to make a living. The few who enjoy the bloodshed for its own sake—" Thomas shrugged. "They'll be a problem, but not, I expect, a problem we can't solve."

Jesus. He'd forgotten how Thomas could be, when he got the bit in his teeth. But there was something new there, now, a certain steely determination James hadn't seen in him before, a harder edge to his tone.

"I can't see it working," James said reluctantly. It seemed that, after all that had happened, he still wanted to believe in Thomas's visions. He _wanted_ the pretty picture Thomas had painted for them. 

"We can't keep sailing a crew of pirates into Boston, especially if we're meant to fly Captain Flint's banner for half the journey to keep the _other_ pirates off. We might get away with it the first couple times, with fake papers and a good disguise once we get into harbour. But if this is supposed to turn into a serious venture, word will get around. Eventually the Navy will be waiting for us."

"Yes. That's where the second half of the plan comes in," Thomas said. "Pardons. We try again, once we've established operations." He smiled, a sharp smile full of teeth; James startled to see it. "Alfred Hamilton's son, recovered from his long, tragic illness, returning to take up the mantle of his cause—backed by our grateful wealthy sponsors, who want Nassau to continue to make them richer. Backed by the most respected pirate captain in the West Indies. With the full support of Lord Alfred Hamilton and the governor of Carolina, who, from what I've heard, no one can accuse of being soft on piracy at this point—"

James stared at him. "With the support of—Thomas, you can't suppose—Peter Ashe might talk to you, at least, for the sake of your friendship, but—"

"Peter sold us out," Thomas said. 

He continued, into the silence that had fallen in the wake of his pronouncement, "He came to Bethlem to beg my forgiveness. I granted it, of course." His lips twisted bitterly. "Dr Mowett was so very pleased at my ability to see reason."

A red haze clouded James's vision. 

Miranda's hand clenched on his thigh, nails digging in. Her voice shook. "I always wondered that Admiral Hennessey would've convicted James on nothing more than a rumour."

"They stole our life from us." Thomas's face was cold and remote, something out of an illustrated bible: Uriel with his blazing sword. "I won't be the one ensuring their cooperation. They'll have a visit from Captain Flint." 

"Thomas—" James started, hesitant. He didn't quite know what to say to this new side of Thomas, to the ruthless thing looking out from behind Thomas's eyes.

"Do you think you're the only one who has changed in the past year?" Thomas held his gaze, unflinching. "I'm done begging my father's support."

"Good." Miranda's voice was a snarl. "Fuck them. Jesus. _Peter_. He sat at our table, he called himself our _friend_ —James, you'll make him give us this, or you'll find another way to make him pay."

God, what a group they'd become. Part of him quailed at it. His kind, forgiving Thomas; his patient Miranda. But the rest of him rose to the challenge in her voice, to the angry beat of his own heart. He'd bring them Peter Ashe and Alfred Hamilton—their support, or their heads on a fucking platter. 

"You really think this will work?" 

But he could already see the shape of it, now. The plantation owners would be hesitant to trust them at first, but they were desperate, trapped with their product behind a beach bristling with pirates. A small scale trial first, perhaps, a single ship, to let everyone see that they could see the goods safely to Boston and be trusted to return with the money. 

Maybe it'd be worth getting a few of the other captains on board. Hornigold had grown comfortable, sitting up there in his fort. He'd welcome a path to a retirement that wasn't the end of a rope—

Thomas smiled. He always knew when he'd won. "I won't say it will be easy. And there'll be other problems to solve, of course, especially if we're to work with the plantation owners. I can't like it, these men getting rich on the backs of slavery, as if there weren't enough men looking for work—as if they couldn't pay a fair wage and still make their profits—" He took a deep breath. "But I don't suppose that's a problem we can tackle in the very first year," he added, sounding reluctant. 

"Dear God, Thomas." James laughed faintly. "Pardons this year, slavery the next. What shall we tackle the year after that? Please don't answer that," he amended hastily. "Shall we never have our peace with you?"

"You don't want your peace," Thomas said mercilessly. "Did you not just finish telling me how much you enjoy a fight?"

James turned a pleading gaze to Miranda, who shrugged, unsympathetic. "I knew what I was signing up for when I said my marriage vows."

James hadn't said any vows. There was nothing to tie him to Thomas's mad plans, which had already burned them up once. He could walk away from this and have his peace: a small, quiet house somewhere far from the sea, a library of books and time enough to read them. 

Thomas had sat up straight in his chair, lit up with an inner fire in a way James hadn't seen since they'd pulled him out of Bethlem. It made James's chest clench to see him like that. James reached out blindly to catch Miranda's hand and felt her squeeze back hard.

Of course James wouldn't leave them. It'd be easier to cut out his own beating heart and walk away from _that_.

Thomas had shown him a vision full of things he'd never thought he'd have again. An honourable trade, a way to keep his ship, a chance to make a difference for Nassau after all, with Thomas and Miranda by his side. Something worth working for.

Maybe he really could have a second chance at happiness, after everything he'd done. This time, James wouldn't let it slip away. 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk about sad pirates with me [on tumblr!](https://cassandrexx.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Detailed warnings: The doctors in Bethlem asylum try to cure Thomas both of his homosexuality and the panic attacks he develops in the asylum by various 17th century methods including ice baths, purges and bleeding. Only the ice bath is graphically described.
> 
> During one sex scene Thomas and James are initially stressed and anxious and not enjoying themselves, but the sex is consensual and ends well.


End file.
